


Noise

by Spiria



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiria/pseuds/Spiria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unwanted for some, maybe. But Irvine relishes the normalcy of sound that night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a belated birthday gift for Zane.

When the camera dies, Irvine holds it for a little longer and stares ahead. Squall and Rinoa are leaning in to kiss. He doesn't get to see the end of it, because Selphie hops into his line of vision and picks the camera out of his hands. Irvine starts at that, fingers curling in to grasp at the sudden emptiness, then smiles as he watches Selphie's retreating form.

 

* * *

 

At some point in the event, Irvine finds himself sitting across Zell and the library girl -- the one Zell has always looked at, and the one who's now looking at Zell and taking care of him. On his end, Irvine rests his chin against the palm of his hand, elbow propped up on the table surface, a look of amusement upon his face. He closes his eyes.

After that, he hears everything. Zell's chewing. The library girl's gentle chiding. Selphie's cheerful shouting across the room, followed by Quistis' clipped laughter. Straining to the right, that might have been Rinoa's voice and Squall's murmur. To the left, Cid's enthusiastic chatter at Edea's side. Everywhere, jumbled noises of the crowd's conversation and footsteps; the clinking of utensils and other metals, whatever they may be; the night breeze outside; and all the other sounds Irvine can't place, but he can hear them, and the cacophany of sounds grounds him to that seat before the table.

Hurried, dragging footsteps close in on his senses. Petite arms throw themselves around his neck. Irvine reels back from the sudden force, and, knowing the perpetrator, laughs shortly.

"Selphie, don't just take my head with you. Take the rest of me, too!" he says.

Selphie hums, then says, "Only if you'll lug your big self around on your own."

"Then let me get that luggage for you," Irvine says. He leans to the side as Selphie removes her arms, then swings his long legs over the bench and stands. "So like, what's up?"

"Well, the cam's dead. So you're gonna help record with the rest of us."

Irvine rubs the nape of his neck. Selphie should know, by now, that he's not as familiar with the techy inventions frequently used by Balamb Garden as her. Only with the old-fashioned, militaristic stuff handled by Galbadia and its Garden. "Uh, sure. What am I recording with?"

"Your head," says Selphie, pointing to her head with enthusiasm.

"I have no clue what you mean. And I'm a little disturbed. That's _your_ head," says Irvine.

Selphie doesn't laugh at his stretch of a joke, though she does offer him a wide grin before springing away on her toes. She beckons Irvine to follow.

She never once tells him of their destination, and Irvine catches on after the first few stops what she meant. They wander aimlessly throughout the floor, watching serious or funny or weird things unfold and filing those moments away in the back of their minds. They recruit along the way, too, Quistis; then Zell, and the library girl, who's an honorary member of the Watching Committee; and then finally Rinoa and Squall after a couple of rounds, after they've got their romantic, sappy stuff out of the way.

Nobody words it like that, but it must have shown on his face, because Rinoa punches Irvine in the arm.

 

* * *

 

Irvine drinks in the noise to his heart's content that night. The laughter, the talk, the footsteps, the accidents. Everything. He files all of that away more obsessively than anything else, maybe just next to Selphie's bright countenance. Because the noise is more life than he's ever known before, before in Galbadia Garden where running warrants punishment and even whispering warrants more punishment. Because when he closes his eyes, he hears everything and it takes him somewhere else in the darkness.


End file.
